I'm wondering whether the promo is causing enough usage to saturate the bandwidth available. Flying today BOS-SFO, simple pages like the FT forum pages take up to a minute to load, and it is not particularly variable. Of my 20 or so GoGo-enabled flights I've taken, performance is by far the slowest on this one.

Assuming more usage is the problem, personally I'm looking forward to January when the fees kick back in.

(Supporting this hypothesis: within 2 minutes of the announcement that carry ons should be put away in preparation for landing, performance sped up to the levels I'd seen on previous flights...presumably a bunch of people went offline.)

I have absolutely noticed that. Since it became free I flew them... five times? But I have also noticed some consistent areas where service was slow no matter what. Seems like too many people wanted to download stuff or watch videos.

I have absolutely noticed that. Since it became free I flew them... five times? But I have also noticed some consistent areas where service was slow no matter what. Seems like too many people wanted to download stuff or watch videos.

Interesting observation. I hadn't noticed much slowness of the inflight gogo [BOS-LAX], but in the airports that Google is doing the promotion in, the speeds are really crawling. I would bet it all improves once the season ends. The upgrades will still be appreciated, though

I'm wondering whether the promo is causing enough usage to saturate the bandwidth available. Flying today BOS-SFO, simple pages like the FT forum pages take up to a minute to load, and it is not particularly variable. Of my 20 or so GoGo-enabled flights I've taken, performance is by far the slowest on this one.

Assuming more usage is the problem, personally I'm looking forward to January when the fees kick back in.

(Supporting this hypothesis: within 2 minutes of the announcement that carry ons should be put away in preparation for landing, performance sped up to the levels I'd seen on previous flights...presumably a bunch of people went offline.)

I also think it is because of promo. I think with wifi being free, everyone with a wifi enabled device would jump on and use the service. Whereas if the service is for a fee, than less people will use it. More people using wifi = Slower Speed. At least there is wifi... i mean your traveling across the sky at hundreds miles per hour several thousand feet in the air, it's gonna take some time for all them data from all them computer to get to where they need to go.